The development of a new vocabulary signals a new conception of the polity, that of an order which is separate from ruler and ruled (or citizen), separate from other polities like it, and operating in a distinct territory.
The territoriality of modern rule means that all who find themselves within the polity’s boundaries are, by that fact, governed, Territory becomes a jurisdictional domain. Rule also becomes direct in a particular sense. In empires rule is typically indirect : considerable power is left to local governors and administrators, and governance is largely through intermediaries. In medieval Christendom, popes for the most part governed believers indirectly thought clergy and kings. In the modern world rule comes to be direct; each and every subject is governed by the sovereign or the state, without mediation (see especially Tilly, 1990). The development of direct rule in this sense is a late development, and it is related to the ‘penetration ’of society by Michael Mann and others: ‘the modern state added routine, formalised, rationalised, institutions of wider scope over citizens territories with both law and administration … as earlier states did not ’ (1986: vol. II, 56-7)